


Dogma

by gazastripping



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Levi is def on the spectrum, M/M, Reincarnation, these bad boys are just going to be tackling a lot of feelings + bad humor
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-15
Updated: 2019-07-28
Packaged: 2019-10-04 10:30:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,868
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17302985
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gazastripping/pseuds/gazastripping
Summary: A "How To" on accepting that war provides an environment you have no say over. Definitely a must-read for boys who have forgotten that there is no war anymore.Or, alternatively: both of them feel they've met before, but only one of them remembers.





	1. BLOODHAIL

**Author's Note:**

> This is so funny because instead of working on my book I just WRITE THIS BULLSHIT
> 
> TO HELL WITH IT
> 
> REINCARNATION GANG
> 
> Find me as [@gazastrippin](https://gazastrippin.tumblr.com) on Tumblr!

“Deus ex machina” is what hits Levi on his Tuesday afternoon book club meeting when the door to their ‘cultsy’ library room swings open just a few minutes too late to still be polite. It wasn’t ever all that formal anyway, the book club and their meetings, taken half of his company smokes medical marijuana for their not-so-palpable OCDs and generic “this is for my lactose intolerance” excuses, but no one had ever been late over the span of his few months as an official member—so Levi imagined this novel act could even ask for a small celebration.

Sometimes it felt like the book club had stamped Levi with an oath for life. It had all submerged into his life within a week, and quitting a book club is, apparently, harder than going cold turkey on JUUL pods. The helpful Facebook Messenger chat he got added to was supposed to serve as a collective form of communication in the case of a grand upcoming literature project or book recommendations, but ended up being a “I’m bored _or_ entitled but will never decide which one” safe space for two dozen people ranging from 17 to 35. “TBF: toosday book fellas” quickly became one of Levi’s first Muted for a Year and Most Often Cleared chat histories. A lot of things exhausted Levi for no other reason than just existing, _especially_ being added on Facebook by exactly 22 new people, all ranging in catastrophically different timeline content. It stressed him out that said Facebook timelines were always discussed post club meeting: he had unfollowed everyone from TBF. It was always hard to pretend he had seen the videos of Erwin’s pet rabbit Boyle eating celery, Nile’s liberal commentary on Alex Jones or Petra’s ukulele cover of fucking Barbara Lewis and astrology posts that Levi, after twenty seconds of sad Capricorn reflecting, decided he spent too much time on.

Levi had grown up in the spectacular household of a single mother who did striptease for a living, smoked Vogue cigarettes while cutting his hair and cooked TV dinner with _a lot_ of yellow seasoning she had brought home from Morocco. Morocco was the only place she had seen outside of New York, and the entire thing happened impulsively after a client deemed to have “fallen in love with her”. Levi, aged eight, was left with a freezer full of French fries and five packs of strawberry Magic Milk straws for two whole weeks. That was the longest he’d went unmonitored. But being left alone in the apartment meant he was in perfect control over whatever was on TV—his mom liked everything Sandra Bullock, and ever since she got them a DVD player, their household had become _powered_ by Bullock and co.

Because he only ever got out of the barely functional family life by going to college, upon first being graded, he realized he’s going to have to try a lot harder than he did in public school where nearly everyone came from unconventional families and kind of just went with it. Now that he rents his own place and has learned that there is more to do with your free time than sucking up everything on TV and re-re- _replaying_ retro video games, Levi tries catching up on everything he missed as a kid. Or rather, he does the things he would’ve been forced to do in a suburban middle-class household: chores, piano classes, basketball—and a book club.

So when the door swung open, it was as if Levi’s entire stripper-mom-infused childhood came back to him. He knew immediately that the new kid has been raised by people who have yet to find out they’re actually parents: he is a teenager who might go 80 on a 40 in his father’s SAAB convertible, his hair was likely cut on the balcony by his mother while she was yelling at some belligerent neighbors, clothes all Goodwill and definitely hand-down shoes from some older brother now serving in Afghanistan or playing college baseball, or literally _both._ Levi feels a whip of joy cremate his heart and even stirs in his seat, forgetting all about the tasteless book club or Erwin inviting everyone over for charcuterie.

He learns that the newcomer’s name is Eren and that Eren’s favorite book on the world is The House of the Scorpion. That is quite how he says it. He throws his JanSport backpack on the floor and says: “I’m Eren and my favorite book on the world is The House of the Scorpion. Is this the book club? You guys look kinda old.”

Levi, who had just recently begun getting out and learned that not everyone’s names are Caleb, Joey, and Elaine, has never heard the name Eren, so he politely asks for Eren to spell it—to which Eren replies that ‘he himself sometimes isn’t sure about the spelling’. But the fact that Levi had the bravado to ask for a stranger to spell a four-letter name seemed to charm Eren. He sits down next to Levi, pulls out a pack of Big Red chewing gum and offers one to him. They chew very quietly under the disarmed stares of other ill-mannered book-clubbers.

The book club talks about Candide, a French satire that Levi had difficulty getting into but enjoyed every page of after some acclimatization. He never talks during their sessions and rather partakes in writing down useful, structured things said by others so he could look back on them before going out on a Saturday and impressing local bartenders who all know he likes dry wine and carbonated water in a pint-sized glass. This is the only high school memoir he finds appealing: mixing white wine with carbonated water (and it was always kind of glamorous to kick in lemon, if within reach). The recipe was born solely after his mom’s Morocco tales, but Levi found out over the years that getting a pint of ‘winewater’ at a bar is infinitely cheaper than a gin & tonic or Tequila Sunset. He felt an urgent need to tip his mom invisible hats every time he was having ‘winewater’—it must’ve been what people drank in the Bible, or at least something of the like.

Levi never thinks of himself as weird. People have described him as weird in multitudes, but it never sat poorly in his spirit, because he never exactly learned what it means to feel offended or hurt. He knew some basic human emotion engineering, like “Joke: Smile”, “Sad Story: Say “Oh, I Am So Sorry”” and “Winewater Brought Up In Conversation: Immediate Metaphysical Bond”, but the general aftermath of growing up the way _he_ grew up presented questionable and/or minimal social skill. Things were rarely funny to him, because laugh tracks are only present on TV and not in real life.

After all book club formalities, Levi sits alone in the red velvet library sofa and picks at the flappy corners of his planner that says “VACAY; VACAY; VACAY” under the following three dates. He wasn’t _actually_ on vacation, but he liked to imagine being off work for three days straight was a vacation of some sort.

Looking at the dates in bold, the gears in his head start grinding. It’s going to be boring to the moon and back once the first few euphoric day-off hours wear away. Erwin’s charcuterie sounds like a great time-killing activity, but Levi feels that he’s already having an allergic reaction to the book club and that more time spent with people from it would engineer the bubonic plague back to life. Suddenly exhausted by orderly adult things, he claps the journal close and looks up—and suffers from a stroke.

“Oh, _these_ guys are o-ho-hollld,” that same Eren from before kneels right in front of Levi and rests his chin on his hands. “You doing something after this?”

“You are very, like, in my personal space,” Levi croaks.

“Okay. Weird. So—doing anything later?”

“I don’t know. I’m trying to think of something.”

“Yeah. You were looking at your planner like some old dude.”

Levi hides the planner behind his back. “It’s because I was hoping to find an excuse not to go to Erwin’s cheese plate Die Hard marathon,” he says. “And I’m twenty-five. And I don’t like cheese that much.”

“Twenty-five is, like…the age you do beekeeping at, and have kids. And the cheese thing: it’s just because you haven’t done enough Buzzfeed quizzes about which cheese fits your personality.” Eren gets up and throws himself on the couch, next to Levi. “You look kinda sane. I mean, not that anyone here looks like they’re from this planet, but you look like you were born on the transit from Earth to Mars. So, kinda sane. Wanna get pizza and then go to Erwin’s thing to poke his rabbits?”

“Okay.”

“What’s your name?”

“It’s Levi.”

“Just four letters?”

“Yeah, just four.”

Fifteen minutes in and they’re at Joe’s Pizza waiting for Sicilian Square pie. Eren is drinking diet Snapple. His reasoning: “I’m tired of explaining this to people, but I once watched a blonde woman on YouTube doing a mukbang, and she was drinking diet Coke. And she was like: you guys are going to judge me for this because I’m fat, eating junk food and drinking _diet_ Coke, but the trick is that you’re not adding any more calories to your meal if you pick diet over regular. So that’s been on my mind for about three years now. Say whatever you want. It won’t keep me up at night.”

Levi himself splurges on Dr. Pepper. Eren claims it tastes like his mom’s chapstick, which then raises the family question, and Levi finally gets on the clear with the stripper mom childhood. Eren’s parents run a car wash _and_ diner joint way out town. Yes—it’s almost exactly like Levi imagined it. Eren is a middle child, and it really shows. The attention deficit is full-blown, and Levi to him is like an Alexa under the Christmas tree. He figures that asking Eren to spell his name was the most attention he had gotten in years, and now he’s going to be his best friend forever.

The Sicilian Square pie is more than too much, but neither of them were going to admit that it’s getting hard to look at. Levi feels surprisingly content about getting pizza with some book club teenager whose personality is crafted from everything that MySpace was before it collapsed within itself. Unlike the Sicilian Square, Eren is easy on the eyes, but Levi thinks the hair could go. He can’t imagine what haircut it could’ve been before it grew out into this misshapen mullet with a single beaded dreadlock in the back. However, he ultimately decides that Eren must know what he’s doing, since he chews Big Red during book club and is the way he is. Watching Eren eat and hyper focusing on the tomato sauce on his chin, Levi thinks that there is something concerning about Eren’s essence of chaotic _randomness_. He wonders whether this bungee jump personality of his is even legible.

“Do you feel weird, or is it just me?” Eren asks over the destroyed plate of Sicilian and Levi’s leftover pizza crust.

“What do you mean?” Levi replies, swallowing a burp. “Dairy make your stomach flop?”

“No. Well—I sometimes cry after eating cheese. But have we… Could we have possibly met before? I’m going through a bit of a déjà vu right now. I do take Adderall for my ADHD, but this is kinda not within my…usual…” Eren visibly fights for words. “Reality glitch range?”

Levi sits back and entwines his fingers over his stomach. He looks at Eren carefully, thinking back at every time they could have somewhat crossed paths. Levi doesn’t go out that often to become someone’s picturesque figment of memory, and his social media presence is definitely in the far back along with his looks. He is not conventionally handsome by any means. It’s not his personal opinion, it’s the status quo—so Levi has no idea what Eren could be getting at.

“At least seventy more men in New York look exactly like me,” Levi reasons, reaching for his Dr. Pepper. “All peas in a pod. I have black hair and classic features. I think it could’ve been anyone. I don’t go out.”

“So you think I’m Adderalling?”

“You are Adderalling.”

Eren’s eyes glaze over for a second. Levi stares at him for what ends up being quite a while.

“Yup, I’m high,” Eren silently says and blinks himself out of it. “This happens all the time.”

Eren’s chaotic energy returns when they get out of Joe’s Pizza for fresh air. Erwin has posted his location on the Facebook group chat and it’s a few block walk from where the two stuffed idiots are at. Eren complains that he’s incapable of walking and requests being carried, to which Levi offers the compromise of being pulled by his ankle.

They pop into a 24/7 liquor store so Levi can get white wine and carbonated water to satiate his ‘winewater’ craving even at Erwin’s. Eren’s ID proves he is eligible for getting an entire Mike’s Hard Lemonade six pack and two cans of Mike’s _Harder_ Lemonade, which Levi finds a completely ridiculous marketing stunt. But when they get out of the store and Levi is stuffing his bottles into his backpack, Eren goes awry.

“I don’t know how long this one’s gonna last, Buddy Blue,” he says, looking down at his ID card. “Cashiers are onto me. I don’t look like a Gustav Moore.”

“Wait, what?”

“I got this fake last summer,” Eren rushes to explain, “you know, to get into moshpits and drink Coronas. I didn’t have much to do, and it’s crazy _I_ say that, since, you know, _summers_. _Yay_. Fun teenage stuff. Bonfires. Dating. Yeah, no. Last summer just… How was yours?”

“My what?”

“Your summer.”

“Oh. I was working. I took a day off to go to a chiropractor and ended up drinking a lot of margaritas at my ex classmate’s in Queens.”

“And that’s your _highlight_ of the _entire summer?”_ Eren deadpans. “Define ‘fun’ for me. I just feel like I gotta know you’re not joking.”

“The definition for fun is lighthearted pleasure.” Levi zips his bag up and throws it over his shoulders. “How about your summer?”

“Eek. Can we sit down right there?” Eren points to the sidewalk. “I’m gonna roll a cigarette. It’s _hella_ hard to do standing with a six-pack in your bag. And can I call you Buddy Blue? You didn’t say anything before, but I’m just gonna get clear on that right now.”

“Uh, yeah.” Levi sits down and crosses his ankles. “Sure. I don’t know what that means, but I guess it’s fine.”

Eren nods, stuffing a cigarette filter between his lips. His speech becomes a tad bit muffled. “Yup. That’s… Okay, this is so weird. It’s weird to talk about. Promise you’re not gonna freak? It’s a little bit of a freaky thing, but, like, let’s face it, we are both from New York. We take the metro. Freakier things have probably— _hopefully_ —been encountered. Hold on.”

Levi patiently waits as Eren picks out bits of Mac Baren tobacco and lines them on a little piece of paper. They are sitting right in front of the liquor store and it’s definitely a while past the golden hour. Levi is somehow sure they were eating the Sicilian during golden hour. But the street is weirdly empty for a Tuesday night, and there aren’t as many windows with the lights on as would normally. The liquor store’s neon red “24/7” falls right on the back of Eren’s head.

Levi sits transfixed. This is all a situational and emotional first to him. Ever since he was a kid, he’d thought of movies as the prime trendsetters of having things to say, or feelings to feel. Feelings _weren’t_ in his life! That’s just the way it happened to be: that’s what his mom told her friends whenever they went all bug-eyed and concerned about his ‘fragile mental state’. The kind of disattachment that Levi has was classified as ‘being on the spectrum’ at primary school, so he was quick to learn the basic concepts of how the rest of the kids functioned to avoid being moved to an expensive private school—and ruled out just fine. But the fact that he is _this_ hyperaware of his surroundings just wrings his gut. Levi is experiencing situational anxiety, possibly for the first time ever.

“So I was weird as a kid. No wonder.” Eren plucks at the tip of his cigarette. “I was that crayon-eating preschooler who drew ominous things instead of my mom for Mother’s Day. My dad says I had a pretty bright imagination and that my teachers milked it for scholar profit by sending me to contests and spoken word. But I… Well, I had to talk about this in therapy last summer, and no one else knows of it. I’m not really sure why I’m telling this to someone I just met at an old people book club. Maybe I’m tripping nuts off my medication.”

“I haven’t spent this much time with anyone in my life,” Levi suddenly says; he didn’t _mean_ to say it out loud, but now that it’s there, he feels the need to back himself up. “And it’s been about three hours at best, so that makes me look bad. I don’t know. I understand where you’re coming from. I felt it when you walked in late, I think. I’ve never felt like I could have friends, but you looked—”

“Like a friend? Yeah! Yeah, and you asked me to _spell_ my name—I mean, who even…” Eren’s voice fades. “It’s just four letters, man.”

“There was that—” _feeling,_ Levi tries to say.

But Eren goes: “Yeah, I know. I felt that, Buddy Blue.”

They both sit silent and stare ahead.

Levi looks over. “You never told me about your summer.”

“Because I’m nervous.”

“You don’t have to if you don’t feel like it.”

Eren flicks his lighter a few times before lighting his cigarette; then, kicks his legs out straight and picks at the fraying ends of his denim shorts. “Weirdly enough, I do, it’s just an awful lot of stuff. You really wanna hear it?”

“I’m sure it’s going to take my mind off my gastrointestinal system falling apart.” But despite the bland humor, Levi genuinely wants to hear what Eren has to say.

“I had an imaginary friend when I was growing up. Report your status after this statement."

Levi pats at his neck. "Pulse still where it should be."

"Great. So my dad always told me it’s all in my head, as did the majority of people around, but I knew for sure that I couldn’t possiblymake a whole grown dude up in my head like that. My brother believed me. Zeke told me I should name the guy so that I never lose the memory of him—which was something he'd read in a Swedish novel while serving. I came up with names like Judge Judy, Pluto, Zorg, but all of them were associated with TV shows and pop culture, so they weren’t… _you know?_ Authentic.Had no ring to 'em. I was reallyhaving trouble with it; Zeke and I had entire sheets of names written down, but nothing ever fit. But I remember one morning before school, Zeke came to the kitchen where I was having PB&J toast and watching a Friends rerun. He sat next to me and whispered—well, he whispered because mom was in the kitchen, too, she didn’t like us talking about imaginary friends—'doesn’t he remind you of the ocean?' And I turned to my brother and said: 'Oh, Buddy Blue, you mean?'”

“He reminds you of the ocean?” Levi asks.

“He often told me about it. I had only seen Upper and Lower Bays, picture book seas, bodies of water in the movies, very meta stuff. I wouldn’t have been that much of a child prodigy if not for him. I was speaking in full sentences at two just because… Like, I don’t know how to explain this to people; he was very… _fatherly_ to me. My dad is great, no shade. But Buddy Blue was with me all the time. One of my very first memories is of him lying next to me in my cradle in this…full-fitted kinda… _uniform_ , crying. He taught me a lot of practical things that seemed unfathomable to my parents. I had to do horse riding as a kid because of my bad back, and he instructed me through it. He was like, don’t slouch, don’t pull at the reins, stay in tune with the horse… Whenever I was upset, he… Okay— _god,_ I probably sound crazy right now.” Eren puffs through his cigarette. Wincing, he says: “Sorry, man.”

Levi has never felt this agitated before. He has been listening so avidly it feels like he’s on hard drugs. Admittedly, when Eren first opened his mouth, Levi was quite sure he would never buy into it; too many people from school had been meeting him for coffee with stories like this for them to end in a pyramid scheme or “Work in Europe” kind of thing. But the authenticity in Eren’s voice proved him different, and Levi is left confusingly full of emotion.

“So he was like a real friend? Like he genuinely felt real to you?”

“Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Like, how else could I have known how to ride a horse at seven with _no_ prior training?” Eren wildly gestures. “And he read me a lot of geeky historical crap that never made sense, but I used it in my essays. My teachers thought of it as some high-tier mental development, but it was all just...him.”

Levi sits and stares at Eren. “That’s some movie stuff.”

“That is so very movie stuff, I know, but it’s real and it legit, like, _happened.”_

“Do you still see him?” Levi asks.

Eren’s eyes dart straight away from Levi’s. “No.”

The sudden brevity from Eren stirs Levi’s newfound anxiety. He sits still, suddenly feeling bad for being that intrusive.

“I’m sorry,” Levi says; one of those automatic “Sad Thing: Say “I’m Sorry” responses.

“No, don’t be. It’s…” Eren struggles with words and it shows. He picks at his shoelaces, at the dirty outsoles of his shoes that are cracking and peeling away. “Fuck. So I went through some real bonkers stuff last summer. It felt like I was in a simulation where someone desperately wanted to get rid of me. On June 14th, I went swimming with my brother, and… The lake wasn’t even that deep, and I was nowhere far from the shore. I was in to maybe my bellybutton, or a little above that. Zeke was setting up a bonfire. And I suddenly feel this weird pull—but it wasn’t a physical pull, it kind of happened in my head—and my mind goes blank. The next thing I know is that there are people screaming, me included, but I don’t  _see_ anything. I hear someone calling my name, but I don’t know who it is; so I just…scream and scream, on and on. It felt like forever.”

Levi notices that Eren’s hands are shaking. He has torn off little rubber bits from his shoes.

“Zeke told me I had just dipped my head underwater. Just like that, dipped, even though I felt a distinct pull _._ He said he thought I was just cooling off, but then I wasn’t coming up for some time, and he went after me. I ended up needing CPR.”

An involuntary “oh my god” escapes from Levi.

“Yeah.” Eren shakes his head. “And that’s when hell really went loose. Like, I can’t even—I don’t know where to begin. I started seeing loony shit. Straight up fucking crazy stuff. I started getting visual and audible hallucinations. Sometimes I would be drawing in my room, literally _just_ fucking _drawing_ in my room, tilting back in my chair and looking out the window—and there would be the creepiest fucking things walking around. Like, several feet tall, malformed, fleshy… Sometimes I would look down at my hands and see that they’re bleeding. But you know what’s weird? There were always bite marks just about here, right along my thumb… Are you okay? Levi?”

Levi sits frozen. “Why do I know that?”

“Know what?”

His heart races. “Why do I know what you’re talking about? The hands. I know this. Like little crescent bites?”

Eren looks shocked at first; then the surprise melts into a skeptic grin, or exactly the kind of face that’s tired of people who jump to fake comforting. It looks like he has heard this a million times before.

“Yeah, no, stop,” Eren says, voice low. “My therapist liked to say that, too. 'We all have dreams of different worlds' was what she said every other session. But it’s not _just_ a dream—I know that this has happened…somehow. I feel it. Someone else saw this. I’m seeing what someone else saw. And I _know_ that, because it didn’t just end there. June 27th, I fell down a flight of stairs, completely out of the blue, and broke three ribs. Keep in mind that I was clinically dead just two weeks prior. I was hospitalized again and had a hallucination that made me throw up all over the bed.”

“What was it?” Levi breathlessly asks.

“My ribs _grew_ back together in _front_ of my _own eyes,”_ Eren drags every word. “I saw the bones shift under my skin. I was sweating and felt hot all over, and my head felt like it’s going to explode. That wasn’t what really happened, of course; I spent a generous amount of time in the hospital, but it felt _so real_. And the surroundings were completely different. When I was watching my body shape back into health, I was gripping onto the bed sheets—but they felt very firm and rough, like linen. Like pure, hard cotton—and they weren’t white, they were light brown.”

Levi is physically out of breath. He’s not quite sure if he’s been holding it this entire time, but his body is lacking oxygen. He feels like something is being pulled out of him, but he doesn’t know what. Maybe Eren’s mind gags are getting to him. He doesn’t know. Something is either breaking in or breaking out, and he doesn’t think he wantsto know which, as tempting as it would be.

“I’m feeling a little sick,” Levi mumbles, heaving. “I’m feeling, like, very nauseous.”

“Was it the ribs? I shouldn’t have been that descriptive,” Eren ponders.

“It wasn’t the…” Levi’s gag reflex goes buck. He swallows dry somehow. “What’s going on?”

“What do you feel?” Eren asks, scooting closer.

_“Vomit?”_ Levi hastily replies. “I’m sweating. And it feels like my heart is beating really fast.”

“Let me feel that.” Eren pushes Levi’s unzipped hoodie aside and presses his palm against his chest. For a second, Levi feels uncomfortable: it’s the second time Eren has broken into his personal space unasked, but his mind sinks in sudden clarity when Eren silently murmurs: “I know this heartbeat.”

Hearing anybody else say that would make Levi somersault into his grave, but Eren’s hushed voice and sympathetic palm over Levi’s racing heart is all so intimately new to him that he just goes breathless again. He stares down at Eren, trying to breathe silently and steadily through his nose, and he feels that his cheeks have gone a little red from the effort made. He feels hot all over; not as nauseous anymore, but certainly elevated in every sense of the word.

“How…” Levi tries. “How do you know?”

The question feels gullible even to himself. He internally curses for sounding like a moron.

Eren’s eyes have glazed over just like before, when he asked Levi if it were possible they knew each other. He’s staring somewhere straight ahead, entirely out of it, breathing through his mouth.

“Oh. Well, yeah. That makes sense,” Eren whispers, more to himself. “That makes sense, that makes complete sense…”

Levi has to lean in to hear him. “Come again?”

“You have the same heartbeat as him,” Eren says and snaps right out of it.

Their eyes meet. Levi feels something like a jolt of electricity run through his body, head to toe. Unnerved by everything that has happened over the span of the last five minutes, he pulls away from Eren and stumbles to his feet.

“It’s been a lot for one night,” Levi blubbers, patting at his pants. “Maybe we should head to Erwin’s—or rather just go home, I’m frankly feeling more than—“

“You don’t remember,” Eren mechanically grunts.

Levi freezes. Straightens. “What do you mean?” He slowly asks.

“Nothing.” Eren pauses. “You don’t…remember.” But this time it sounds less like a reproach and more like surrender.

The sun has long disappeared behind mid-rise buildings, and the only proof it was ever there is the warmth of the asphalt and potted flowers closing their petals for the night. Eren sits sprawled on the sidewalk. His knees are bruised. Levi isn’t sure how he didn’t notice that before. Eren’s t-shirt is weird, his denim shorts are cut uneven, and his tube socks are dirty with bike grease and grass stains. His little dreadlock hangs over his hunched left shoulder—and his eyes are boring up and into Levi’s. Levi wouldn’t forget someone like that. People like Eren don’t leave your mind; Levi is sure of it.

He kneels in front of Eren, who is now staring down at his hands. “Hey.” Levi pokes at Eren’s boney knee. “Are you sure you’re not just compromised by these psychic Adderall overlays?”

“No,” Eren murmurs. “But at the same time, I’ve never been more sure about anything in my life.”

“Do I look like him?”

“You look exactly like him. You sound like him, too, but you’re… You can't be him. It’s just not possible. You’re _real._ I stopped seeing him when I was about twelve or older, and gradually forgot things that I swore I would remember. And I hadn’t seen him up until last summer. It was like… Oh. _Oh,_ that’s so dumb.”

Levi’s mouth jerks. “What’s dumb?”

“Have you seen Twilight?”

A wave of heat runs through Levi’s body, and he feels that he could get sick again. “One of the things I wish I could deny.”

“So it’s like that.” Eren gets up as well and pats himself clean. “It’s like Bella in New Moon. Whenever some mad crazy shtick happened to her, she saw the dude she was in love with. And now that’s happening to me. How…weird and teen cult.”

Levi nervously laughs. “In love with?”

Eren shrugs. “I guess.” He picks up his backpack and slings it over his shoulders. “You know, I was really thinking about that thing at Erwin’s, but it looks like I’ve gotta head home. You know when you say a lot of stuff and then go, fuck, I really said a bunch of stuff? That’s how I feel right now.”

They stand at a weird distance. Levi feels a little void of emotion.

“I’d like to see you again,” he shyly says, seeing Eren slowly turn on his heel. Levi has _never_ said anything like that before. “Either next Tuesday, or…anytime soon. Or just again.”

Eren stands still, back turned to Levi. Then he whips back around.

“Honestly, I have never wanted to see someone more than I want to see you right now,” he blurts out. “It’s weird, shut up, don’t say anything. Just don’t say anything. Give me your number. No, wait. I don’t have a phone right now. What’s your last name? Give me your e-mail.”

“You’re in the book club group chat,” Levi says. “I’ll add you from there.”

“Oh my god. Okay. Okay, that is…that’s great, that’s cool. So you don’t think this is weird at all?”

Levi actually wants to say that it’s all, in fact, a _little bit_ weird (since he has never  quite looked like anyone’s childhood imaginary friend before), but instead says: “I kind of believe you when you’re telling me this stuff. I’ve always thrown myself behind every alternate universe and time travel shindig, so…who knows.”

Eren throws him a puzzled look.

“I watched a lot of TV growing up,” Levi shamefully explains.

“I bet you haven’t seen the entirety of The X-Files.”

“I’m about six years older than you. It was law. How old are you?”

“Eighteen.”

Levi throws his head back. “Oh, come on.”

“Come on, what?” Eren laughs. “I’m young and statuesque, and will remain as beautiful as I am for at least ten more years. Look at my muscles.” He pulls at the sleeve of his shirt and flexes a soft teenage bicep. “These are BB guns. Stands for baby guns.”

“Stands for baby guns?”

“Goddamn right it does.” Eren’s bubbly laughter fills the street. “Add me on Facebook, okay? Just in case you don’t show up next Tuesday, or I happen to fly down the stairs again.”

“Okay. I will.”

“Yeah?”

Levi nods, pulling out his phone. “Promise.”

Eren sticks his pinky finger up. “You don’t have to give me your pinky, I’m just giving you mine. I personally believe that pinky promises are looked over by god himself and cannot be—what are you doing on your phone? I’m giving you the pinky promise of _god_ and you’re on your phone?”

“Just added you on Facebook via the _mobile_ iOS app,” Levi says, stuffing his phone back in his pocket. “God's gotta catch up, Eren _Jaeger.”_

“Fine, Levi _Ackerman!"_ Eren shouts, looking down at his own phone as they’re both walking backwards and away from each other."He just fucking might!” 


	2. CHIRAL

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Writing Dogma I feel like that video of the guy going "ahAhahahah......" but then he side-eyes the phone and looks out the window
> 
> Find me as [@gazastrippin](https://gazastrippin.tumblr.com) on Tumblr!
> 
> Listen to the [playlist](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4usPAG3jzqtKEGXHUTTMOD?si=lnDgcRzfTsaMyLRRNUFLFw) as well!

Levi’s metro is stuffed. He has to stand the entire ride.

His bag is heavy from the wine and carbonated water.

Swinging between masses of people, drunkenly singing bachelors and two sleeping women who he is sure must be domestic lesbians, Levi blankly stares out the scraped window and wonders when was the moment his life turned into something more than paycheck to paycheck college student rut. Working a corporate nine-to-five is still the same rut, but it sits different within him now that the seed of curiosity has been planted.

It all suddenly feels like a dumb teenager flick, like some awful joke, or an episode of Punk’d. Ultimately, he decides to take it all with a grain of salt, because he knows himself for being gullible in the heat of several normally corny moments. Being raised on pop culture and television, he should know better than to get invested in a teenager’s fantasyland—but skepticism towards this entire situation would be the key motif for most 80s escapist novels, so Levi is truly at a loss for the first time in a long time.

He counts stations and stops until he gets off, walks home the same route he always does. On his way upstairs, Levi remembers he has nothing prepared for dinner, so he heads back down and takes a grocery store detour.

Yes, so that’s how it is now: everything is horrible. The sudden detachment from reality that Levi is experiencing is tampering with his mood, and he finds himself in huge turmoil over the usually simple What’s For Dinner decision. For the first time since moving out of his mother’s apartment, Levi opts for microwaved Hot Pockets, and upon waving his card, he realizes he’s not even hungry. The sheer habit of getting home and preparing food to eat had gotten to him. Maybe this is the first step of breaking out of his everyday chrysalis: impulsivity. The Sicilian Square.

Levi lies on his worn Persian couch for a long time. He hasn’t even taken his shoes off.

He rummages through his mind for any memory figment with Eren in it. He thinks so hard that his brain overheats, but gets nothing. And when he goes at it again, standing in front of the purring microwave, he has nothing. He goes back to the couch—nothing. Still ultimately nothing.

Levi was never the one to listen to music as a pastime activity, but since the day is like no other days, he opens up his laptop to play something his Vogue-smoking mother would dance to: such as Frankie Valli & The Four Seasons. Facebook turns out being the window he had left open last session. Out of habit, Levi refreshes the page.

Facebook dings and shows he has six unread messages.

 **Eren Jaeger:** _I jumped the gun_

 **Eren Jaeger:** _Bit the bullet, whatever_

 **Eren Jaeger:** _I wanted to apologize again for coming off all breezy and weird, I’m sure it wasn’t what you normally put up with. You home yet? Got there safe? I didn’t break a bone on my way home, so if you put a rabbit’s foot in my pocket while I wasn’t looking, I will begin to adore you_

 **Eren Jaeger:** _On a different note, it looks like I have the apartment to myself for some time._

 **Eren Jaeger:** _I’m in Harlem btw._

 **Eren Jaeger:** _Ok I am so LOUSY lol get back at me when you can_

Levi immediately pulls his laptop off the table and sits back in the couch.

 **Levi Ackerman:** _Harlem which part_

Eren responds immediately:

 **Eren Jaeger:** _East and hi_

 **Levi Ackerman:** _I’ve been staring at my wall since I came home_

 **Eren Jaeger:** _I thought I scared you off and wanted to die_

 **Eren Jaeger:** _But_

 **Eren Jaeger:** _Do you have plans for the night? Or was Erwin’s meat platter like genuinely a thing you thought you might enjoy? I am on the edge of my sanity and I think that we need to get together again as soon as possible_

 **Eren Jaeger:** _Now that I’ve found out you exist I need to sponge you up_

 **Eren Jaeger:** _If I can somehow bribe you to come over I will_

 **Eren Jaeger:** _I AM TALKING SO MUCH AGAIN I’LL STOP_

Levi quickly scratches his damp armpit and is surprised that he’s stress perspiring. Of course he wants to see Eren. It doesn’t matter that he just did. Levi finds Eren one of the few tolerable people in his dainty New York existence, without bringing up the fact that he barely knows anyone at all. Nothing entertaining had happened for years. No one had looked at Levi all beaming, excited—so the bait was in the water, and the bullet had been bit.

 **Levi Ackerman:** _Send me your address_

 **Eren Jaeger:** _I can’t believe it_

 **Eren Jaeger:** _God I can’t believe it_

Levi changes into comfier clothing, combs through his hair, weighs for a shower. He ends up standing under running water for longer than anticipated, thinking about the hindering possibility of an alternate timeline, and the chance that he knew the newest book club member in some different universe than this. Of course, what _are_ the chances, he thinks, but him thinking that way doesn’t exclude the _possibility_ of chances, as slim as they might be. He does hope that whatever part of Eren’s brain is responsible for Buddy Blue isn’t just a bodily malfunction or chemical disbalance, but an actual concept to explore, since he could prove to be somewhat useful in the longer run. And Levi has to admit that he is not about to jump on the metro just because, wham, time travel, alternate universe, parallel worlds: he thinks Eren is very—how to put it— _cute._

Yes, so that’s how it is now: everything is, maybe, not all that horrible.

He takes the metro again. Stares out the scraped window again. No domestic lesbians, nor are there bachelors, nor is it stuffed. His metro is ghastly empty of people; only few could be spotted, buried in their phones, newspapers, scarves, sleeping. Levi has always liked metros. They give him a reality check. There are days he feels nothing is good or real—there is too much going on in the world, grim abortion bills are being passed, minority oppression flares, nuclear war seems to be peaking, politicians are idiots, and it goes on for much longer. He shoulders all this worldly worry alone and thinks too much about it, coming to a final solution that people have ruined their own fun. But on the metro, he can only think about how funny that guy’s shoes are, or how exciting that woman’s book must be—she’s licking her finger, flicking the page, smiling to herself and radiating energy Levi doesn’t feel within himself on the daily.

Maybe Levi’s sudden sense of irresponsibility could be accumulated to some bigger problem, but maybe that’s what people should experience: letting themselves wind down. And maybe the reason why he’s in the metro on his way to Spanish Harlem is exactly that, winding down. Eren and his baffling story has given him the liberty to act on his wants, and not exactly needs. Levi doesn’t know what they’ll do when he gets there, but it doesn’t matter, because it’s something he has never done before. Therefor, good.

Eren, the morbidly kind soul, awaits him at the station, and looks happier than a breathing person should be upon seeing the little crow’s nest that is Levi. Surely Levi is affected as well—he feels some kind of billowing joy inside his chest while Eren goes on about his parents’ rash country getaway, brother’s college ups and downs, and factually so many things that would never be icebreakers if Levi wasn’t Levi, and Eren wasn’t Eren. Levi feels very stupid when asked about his parents, and he truthfully admits that he would rather talk about anything else.

“Fair warning: I got rats,” is what Eren decides would be a good opening phrase to his diet-sized bedroom, and somehow, Levi can’t think of anything other than “of _course_ he would have rats”. He is surprised Eren doesn’t own an alligator, or, say, a crow—a fully ominous creature.

He spots about five little critters waddling around the room, some smaller, some definitely chunkier, but he counts no definite number until Eren flicks the light switch. Seven—he thinks it’s seven.

“Seven rats?” Levi asks, awkwardly bending his toe towards a particularly large rat.

“Eight. Grandmaster Flash is in the cage. That there by your foot is Beelzebub.” Eren kneels to scratch the rat. Recognizing their owner, the rest of the rats surround him. “I call him Bub, Bubbers, Bubsy. He’s the pops. Grandmaster Flash is the oldest one. I picked him up from a rescue home. His back legs went wonky, so he doesn’t walk around as much. Sits in his cage all day.”

“They’re crawling on you,” Levi says. “That’s funny. I’ve never seen rats that aren’t…”

“Yes. Sewer rats.” Eren smiles. “I think Gertrude is way up in my shorts.”

It turns out that the only way to get all eight of them in one place is food. Eren brings out a platter of food that is probably more nutritional than what Levi eats: chickpeas, rice, vegetables, bananas, peanut butter. Upon the smell and Eren’s kissy sounds indicating dinner, the rats scurry inside their cage, and Eren closes it behind them. He mentions that, if Levi happens to see little poops around the room, it’s only fair; and Levi agrees that little poops are only fair.

Now that Levi isn’t distracted by Eren’s eccentric pets, he observes the room. Most of it is consumed by a mattress for a bed, the giant rat cage and a clothes hamper that might fall apart after one more cropped shirt. Several boxes full of vinyls, video games, movie DVDs and very robust-looking stuff fill up the rest. Multiple drawings on the walls, some from pop culture that Levi immediately recognizes. At the very far end of the room is a balcony door. Everything looks exactly like Levi expected it to.

“I guess it’s no Barbie Dreamhouse, but we’re pretty good with rent here,” Eren begins, walking over to his mattress and falling down on it. “Don’t know if I could’ve possibly had my room messier than right now. I couldn’t if I tried.”

“I think I like your room,” Levi tries.

Eren tilts his head. “So there is something in this world that you like, after all.”

“I often have trouble expressing my emotions.”

“Believe it or not, but so I’ve noticed.”

Levi feels a little elevated.

They opt for drinking as initially planned and sit outside on the balcony, watching the remnants of late shift waitresses letting their hair down and smoking out back to ring an end of another day at work. Eren rolls cigarettes for them both. Levi hasn’t smoked a cigarette in his life, despite the logical rundown of being a secondhand smoker, so the first few drags feel like willful suffocation.

Over Eren’s melodic humming along to “Chamber Of Reflection”, all Levi can think about is their odd meeting. There are so many people in New York that it’s baffling how the two right ones got their one shot. He thinks of the credibility of Eren’s words, tries to find some scientific explanation to this phenomenon and whisks his brain frothy, just to finalize that this is something completely exceptional he just has to come to terms with. And maybe there is some palpable connection between them, because Eren doesn’t jump right into trying to crack the mystery and instead lets Levi accustom to completely new surroundings—like someone who would’ve known Levi for a longer stretch of time.

Their video game heart vials fill with one drink after the other. Levi feels a prominent buzz, which is to his liking. Eren turns out a lightweight. And nothing has been tackled since Levi’s arrival—until Eren offers rolling another cigarette.

“He smoked in the backyard of our summerhouse,” he silently begins. “I wanted to see you do it.”

Levi blows a little string of smoke and turns to look at Eren. “Was he a smoker?”

“Actually, far as I remember, no. But as I grew older and we began to resonate in different frequencies, he picked it up. I stood leaning out the window, watched him sit by the lake shirtless, just smoking. It was usually after we had had a disagreement.”

“You argued?”

Eren stills. “You could say that. Maybe not arguments—but it was clear he struggled more the older I got. I’ve been thinking about it, trying to…tackle his perspective. I was growing into the age when something had went wrong between us.”

Levi feels confused. “I think I’m not following.”

“Him and I, we knew each other. At some point, in some alternate universe—the one he comes from. He knew the person whose memories reside in me. It’s a… It reads like some folk tale. I think he was trying to make me remember, or mold me back into this…alternate me. But seeing me grow up with no success on his behalf, he lost hope. I still think it’s the reason why I stopped seeing him.”

Eren flicks the butt of his cigarette off the balcony and crosses his legs.

Levi mirrors both motions and rests his head against the rail. “Tell me about the memories you experience.”

“Sometimes I forget how to write.”

“Forget?”

“Yeah, forget—when the memories intervene and I have these near schizophrenic bouts. The alternate person was unable to write or read in English. I’ve caught myself boring holes into books because everything is suddenly nonsensical. Our letters are just…foreign symbols.”

“Do you think there was a different alphabetical system in that world? Or did writing not exist? There must’ve been some kind of literacy.”

Suddenly, Eren smiles. “You wanna see something?”

Levi doesn’t even manage his “yes”, and Eren is already by his mattress, pulling out scraps of paper. He rustles through a basket for a pen, and is soon back by Levi’s side—shoulders brushing together.

“Watch this,” he says, and proceeds to write a tidy line of completely unreadable symbols.

Levi stares down. He feels uncomfortable to have to tell Eren that this means nothing to him. “Is this their language?” He finally asks.

“This is the written form. It’s completely automatic—ingrained in my consciousness. I didn’t learn this like some die-hard Tolkien fan, this is coming from the other memory—like a different hard drive, if you’re tech-savvy. I’ve tried doing some research, and the closest thing to this are runes.”

“It doesn’t exist,” Levi mutters.

“Exactly. I…” Eren swallows so loud that even Levi hears it. “I am carrying a dead language.”

Levi wants to explode. None of this makes sense to him, but he also wouldn’t exactly claim that he doesn’t understand. It feels as if his life has become a sci-fi novel; it doesn’t feel real. But he somehow believes Eren with his entire being.

“So what does it say?” He asks, pointing at the paper.

Eren quickly looks away. “Well—it’s just some words. Just to show you.”

“Random words?”

“Pretty much. Just strung up a ‘quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog’ kind of dealio.”

Levi runs his fingers over the piece of paper. Eren’s pen has dented it from the intensity of writing. He inspects each little symbol carefully, hoping that there could be some enlightening arrival—but as it happens to be with everything else this situation involves, he runs dry.

“So you know an entire language...” Levi muses. “You bite your hands, hear people dying and somehow know my alternate counterpart.”

“I saw my mom die,” Eren almost casually says. “Ever since then, I’ve wanted to know more. But it seems these memories are triggered only by similar incidents. The hospital bed, the CPR—and now you.”

“Do you see him again?”

“No, I see you. Which is factually probably the same thing—but watching you makes my current reality glitch. I…” He hesitates. “I don’t want to scare you away, but I have to tell you something.”

Levi watches Eren over the rim of his glass. They hold eye contact until Eren speaks again.

“Ever since I first saw you at the book club, it’s been pouring down on me. Every second of the day. I kept up a little bit of pretense not to immediately freak you out, but there is a lot that I’m not telling you in order to—I don’t know, still have you around, I think.”

“I’m not leaving.” It escapes Levi before he can adhere to the thought. But now that it’s out, he doesn’t want it back. Forget that they’ve known each other for a few hours; they have at one point, apparently, shared a lifetime.

“I was your subordinate. We had a very specific dynamic.”

“You?”

“I am the person whose memories I see.”

“Like reincarnation.”

“Just like that.”

Levi hates that he doesn’t understand. Hates that he can’t remember. Hates not knowing his place in the big picture. And “hate” is a strong emotion, one he has rarely felt, if at all, so to have such emotional turmoil within caused by someone he had met just hours ago—the world is certainly ending, and reality must be falling apart.

He has a role that he must fulfill, or one that he has fulfilled in a different lifetime, but he knows nothing of it, and remembers nothing of it. He doesn’t recognize Eren the way Eren recognizes Levi. He doesn’t feel the same overwhelming connection that Eren does when he looks his way. And for the first time in his life, he feels completely helpless.

Levi mixes himself another glass of winewater and lets his feet dangle off the balcony, staring down at the silenced street. There are no people, there is no sound. The air is warm. He turns to ask Eren for another cigarette, but halts at the sight of him crying with no actual emotion.

“Eren?” Levi scoots closer by impulse. “Eren, hey.”

“Fucks me up that it’s just me again,” Eren whispers. “How am I the odd one out again?”

Levi quickly puts his glass down and pulls his feet back up. He sits next to Eren and awkwardly wraps his arm around Eren’s shoulders. This man has clearly never comforted anyone in his life; who breaches personal space like this? But to Levi’s surprise, Eren leans into him further than expected—he presses his cheek against Levi’s neck, feels his quickening pulse and smells the remnants of shower gel.

“Levi, what do you think; why the fuck is it always me?” Eren’s voice renders weak. “It feels like there’s no good left in this world.”

“I’m…here.”

Eren faintly laughs. “The one good thing left?”

In return, Levi nervously smiles. “Maybe. But I think that was me trying to comfort someone for the first time ever.”

“God—I just wish… I wish you remembered.” He languidly rubs his nose against Levi’s jaw. “It would be so much easier if I wasn’t alone again. This even feels the same.”

But because Levi has nothing to compare this to, he can only sit and let Eren take his hurt out. He doesn’t know what is it he doesn’t remember, much less what “feeling the same” could possibly mean in their situation.

“And this is my life now,” Eren continues. “Infiltrating the lives of complete strangers because something is not okay with my brain. You not freaking out is beyond me.”

“No, no, I believe in you,” Levi rushes to say. “I think you already know this. Now that you’ve told me more about it, I’m beginning to feel this is bigger than I initially thought.”

“Well—yeah. This is someone’s entire life just surging through me for some fucking reason.”

“You said you had been my subordinate; in what system?”

“The military. We were at war.”

“With whom?” Levi shyly sits back and lends them their individual spaces. He would have liked to stay in the same position, but considering they had only met today, he opts for distance. “Was it a civil war?”

“It was…” Eren’s eyes become glassy again. He stares intensely at a balcony tile, and his eyebrows lower in confusion. “I can’t remember. No—it’s like I literally just don’t have this specific segment of memory. Like a damaged film roll, to be exact. But I do remember that you were my captain.”

“What was the world like?”

“Dystopian as fuck.”

“Was there a democracy?”

“A monarchy. We had a queen.” Eren reaches back to get his tobacco. “It fucks me up that, instead of being able to live in a world rid of war, I am burdened with the same memory. The same timeline. The same legacy. I’m missing fragments of it, but it’s beginning to piece together now that I’ve met you. If this freaks you out, do tell.”

“This is not freaking me out.”

“Why? It freaked everyone else out.”

Levi has to shrug. “Just doesn’t. I’m emotionally inept. I don’t even think I know what it’s like to freak out.”

“You haven't changed. Think that could mean you’re able to remember?” Eren drops his cigarette filter in excitement. “Not to jump over my head, but maybe there is a compartment of your brain you haven’t unlocked yet. It probably contains our past life and a handful of emotions.”

“I have some emotions.”

“Like what?”

“I liked your room.”

“That is not an emotion.”

Upon Eren’s “I just think it could be cool” request, they fight the mattress through the narrow balcony door and lay it on the tiles. Eren admits that he sleeps like this when in his feelings, and Levi is completely baffled as to how other people can just _be_ in their feelings. If asked, he could likely name one time he had felt something, and that one time was today, when Eren felt up his heartbeat.

He doesn’t particularly obsess over the fact that he has paid Eren a large liking, but he’s not about to wrestle with the fact. Levi likes him, as completely unabashed and weird and ultimately wrecked their situation is. This is a big personality that Levi has encountered, but he doesn’t feel alarmed or scared that he could be left in the shadow. It rather feels as a mutual little deal; both give, both take.

When they finally weigh in that “this one certain cigarette should be our last” and get down on the mattress to stare straight into the polluted Harlem sky, Eren murmurs something about sweating and gets back up. He later emerges from the balcony door shirtless, wearing a pair of old running shorts, their strings uneven and dangling. Levi flicks the longer one with his fingers and feels weirdly amused.

He very much enjoys the way Eren looks, which is not something he has otherwise paid attention to. Their family must be visiting their summerhouse often, because Eren’s tan is a bit too uneven for it to be his actual complexion, and he is quite beefy for an eighteen-year-old. It’s a known fact that Eren doesn’t work out; he was completely wiped when they beat the stairs to his apartment, so Levi is, maybe, a little upset that this muscle mass is just natural and undeserved, and that Eren is no gold-winning athlete.

When Eren lies down on his stomach, prepped up on his elbows to watch the street, Levi buries half his face behind his forearm and watches him. His little beaded dreadlock falls over his shoulder, and from the shoulder Levi indulges in the arms, and then the back—and very reasonably skips the rest, instead looking back up at the boy’s face.

Eren seems thoughtful. Not quite worried, but definitely not at peace. He is biting his lower lip, eyes searching for something down the street that would offer him a sort of momentary satisfaction, something that could turn the powerhouse in his brain off.

Levi briefly wonders what could be the closest to having someone else’s memories. Probably only hard drugs, or a mental disorder. He has to admit that he is scared Eren might just have some robust form of a disorder, and that Levi could be doing more harm to him by enabling than he is any help.

But he decides to sleep on it, because he is accidentally piss drunk off winewater.

* * *

“This early?”

Eren looks back over his shoulder, but is quick to reel back. “Didn’t know you’re awake.”

“This doesn’t answer my question.”

“The guards switch in about ten. Easier for me to get out.”

“Nothing happening today that you should get out for.”

“Cosmically suave. You are never like this.” Eren smiles as he pulls his pants on.

Levi rests his cheek against his hand. The sun shines in a square directly onto him, and he stares into the sky. “Cosmically? I’ve always been this way.”

“I have to get back for the morning drill. Gonna be a ruckus if my bunk’s empty—but you know this.”

“There’s a better chance at everyone thinking you ran off than the idea that you slept here.”

“Because you’re seemingly unlovable.” Eren adjusts his thigh straps. He is still shirtless. “Do you always watch me do this?”

Levi stretches in bed. His muscles are sore and it’s a rare bliss to have had a full night of sleep. “When I have the chance, sure. If that makes you feel better.”

Eren turns fully now, upper harness dangling from his hips as he pulls his shirt over his head. Unusually slow with the suspension on his shoulders, Levi notices, and rather hesitant. He can’t tell right away if it’s because Eren wants to stay, or because the shoulder pads of his harness have worn down to the point they eat into his skin.

“Like I said,” Levi slowly begins, sneaking his foot from underneath the linen sheet, up to Eren’s thigh, “nowhere to be today. But if you so wish to leave, do yourself a favor and get new shoulder pads.”

“Fine, old dog.” Eren pulls on his jacket. “See you in the field.”

Levi stays in bed, unmoving. Closes his eyes as he listens to Eren’s footsteps down the hall.

He wakes up sweating.

The morning sun falling straight on his body has obliterated his senses, his nose feels stuffy and he could almost begin celebrating his first actual hangover, if it weren’t for the fact that he just had the most hyper realistic dream possible. He whips his head to the side to find that Eren is not where he was last night, and that, wow, yes, they really did sleep on the balcony, and scrambles to his feet immediately after the fact.

Every little crease of Levi’s body feels hot and entirely gross. While slowly tiptoeing around Eren’s rats who have been let out the cage once again, he swears to himself that he won’t sleep on a single balcony ever again, and also that drinking should probably be more monitored than that whole “going to town with it” he did yesterday. Even his nose is running, which makes matters infinitely worse. He thinks he could kill for a shower.

“Eren?” Levi calls out, hanging awkwardly between Eren’s bedroom and the hallway to the door.

“Oh, you’re up,” comes from Levi’s right. “Come on in, I’m in the kitchen.”

Levi enters Eren’s cozy space, aiming for the chairs at the table. “I had a weird dream,” he says, pulling at the closest one. “Okay, I think ‘weird’ is an understatement.”

Eren does not comb his hair, and he appears to dislike clothing, because the shorts are still his only garment. Levi tries to feel less excited about it than he automatically already does. Eren is preparing a food plate for the rats with Beelzebub actually eating his dreadlock on his shoulder, while also making breakfast for them. Levi’s mom had never done this, and he feels a bit enamored.

“What made it weird?” Eren asks and looks over his shoulder, and this miniscule motion dents Levi’s consciousness, because, yes, he confirms that it was surely Eren he saw dreaming.

“You were getting dressed.” And then: “Wait, that sounds very dumb.”

“That sounds a bit dumb.” Eren licks the spoon of peanut butter and turns around. “But I guess it’s cute.”

Levi clears his throat. “I think it’s more cute that you mentioned you had a bunk bed while putting clothes on.”

The speed in which Eren puts his spoon down is miraculous. “No.”

“What?”

“Bunk bed?”

“Yeah, you were supposed to be in your bunk, but I don’t really know why it felt like my room—“

“What was I wearing?”

"Well, nothing at first." Levi pulls his knees up to his chest. “White pants and a very odd and probably very uncomfortable harness. Uh—olive green shirt, if that matters.”

Eren is just gaping. For a second Levi wants to ask him if he’s perhaps allergic to peanut butter, in which case this morning would really suck. But Eren just walks up to Levi, puts Beelzebub in his lap and runs straight back to his bedroom. All Levi can think of is to rub Beelzebub by the ears and wait for Eren to come back, since he has, after all, just woken up, and feels more disconnected from reality than ever before. He finds himself lingering on the dream quite a bit—clearly in that setting they had slept together. The short conversation was not one between people who barely knew each other. But before he is able to come down to some grand conclusion, Eren bolts back in the room, holding a bunch of drawings.

“Levi, if this happens to be it, I’m officially and with pride going to shit my pants,” he winds, landing on the other free chair with a loud thud. Eren sets the pages out on the table, pushing two oranges out of the way, and clasps his hands together, patiently waiting until Levi says something.

The drawings are surprisingly detailed for cheap and wobbly printer pages. They all consist of faceless figures dressed in variations of exactly what Eren put on in the dream.

“That right there,” Levi points at a certain drawing. “But a different shirt. But it looks like it doesn’t matter. Eren, you're gonna have to stop smiling like that."

Eren is beaming. “There is just _no_ fucking _way.”_

“I hope you're not keeping the promise of shitting yourself still?"

"I _absolutely_ am! God, I could _kiss_ you right now!" Eren abruptly stands and throws himself around the kitchen. "Holy fuck! Holy _fuck!"_

Levi looks down at Beelzebub, who is just sniffling the air in complete shock, and they both conclude that Eren has lost his marbles.


End file.
